The Justice of Kings, page 25
My brow wrinkled in confusion. I could not see anything inside that could account for the corner of paper, just underwear. Then, as I reached in, I realised that there was a hidden compartment at the bottom of the drawer. It was hardly ingenious, just enough to deter all but the determined searcher. I pulled away the thin board and could barely stifle a gasp as I saw the slim bundle of letters underneath.
I snatched up the first one and clutched it, my fingers staining the parchment with sweat. It read:
Excellency,
I was so thrilled to hear of your donation to the Order of the Temple of Savare; the Jadrans have always been a pious and godly company, and though I was unsurprised by your willingness to fund our cause, I was thrilled by the depth of your generosity.
On my return I will be sure to introduce you to Baron Naumov. I have spent some time with him this past year. Roundstone has been something of a second home during my tour of the South- and Eastmark of Haunersheim, and I have found a close ally in the baron. Like many other old Sovan Hauners, he is a devout man. He will be most interested in your scheme.
I will write to you again when my time permits. As matters stand I intend to catch up with one of the Imperial Magistrates moving up the Hauner road. You will recall our discussion about the Order of the Magistratum and their diabolical chokehold on the old Neman magicks. I expect it will be an educational experience!
From there, and for the purposes of any further correspondence, my destination remains Seaguard; like Baron Naumov, I hear good things about the margrave. After that, I shall return south, though I have not settled on a final route yet. The steady hand of the God Father will guide me.
Yours in faith,
Bartholomew Claver
My heart thumped in my chest. The letter had clearly been sent in the weeks before Claver had caught up with us at the Jägeland border. The man had a talent for deception, for none of us had suspected his motives. I tried to think of whether any of us had let anything sensitive slip, for his questions had been incessant – something which had seemed merely irritating at the time, but which now filled me with a dark sense of foreboding. But there would be time enough to ruminate on it later. For now, two things had become abundantly clear: the first was that Claver had designs on the Order of the Magistratum itself. The second was that a healthy fraction of the funds from the Galen’s Vale treasury had ultimately made its way to the Savaran Templars. The only outstanding question was whether Lady Bauer’s death had anything to do with it.
I snatched up another letter and opened it. From its contents, it must have come a number of weeks later, and in response to a letter from Obenpatria Fischer. It read:
Excellency,
Thank you for taking the time to write to me again. Your eagerness to continue to assist fills my heart with joy. I will see that the CoP receives word of your piety; the Neman patriarchs in Sova are always keen to hear of and meet men of special character.
I and my fellows in the Order of the Temple are most buoyed by your ready access to further funds and your kindly disposition towards our cause. There is no need for further correspondence; the more we keep in our heads and hearts and the less committed to paper the better.
I will see you soon.
Yours in faith
Bartholomew Claver
“CoP” had to mean the College of Prognosticators, one of the governing bodies of the Neman Church. I wondered if Claver really did have the ear of such a senior and august institution, or whether this was empty bragging. Regardless, the meaning of “eagerness to continue to assist” clearly suggested that Fischer had volunteered more money for the Templars’ coffers, no doubt to gain exactly the kind of favour that Claver had promised in return. If the funds flowing into the Treasury from the mercantile excise were anything like as high as the records suggested, even a small cut of the money being quietly stolen and funnelled into the kloster would be irresistible to a man like Claver and his Templar army. After all, huge sums of money were what armies required. Not only did soldiers need swords, spears, arrows, shields and armour, but they required vast quantities of food – as did their horses – and an endless procession of skilled tradesmen and women to construct their fortifications, cook their meals, shoe their horses, fix their siege engines, tend to the sick and injured, sate their lusts, minister to the masses, and so on. Nothing on earth is as expensive as warfare, but fortunately for Claver, this ready line of credit would take some of the edge off.
I refolded the letter, placed it back where it had been, replaced the board and covered it back over with underwear. I dared not spend any more time in the bedchamber. What was clear was that there was a link between Fischer and Claver, and that would be enough for Vonvalt to prise the truth from Fischer’s lips with the Emperor’s Voice, like a bar between a hinge and a doorjamb.
I pushed the drawer closed, relieved that this dangerous enterprise was over, turned to leave—
—and then froze in horror as I heard the apartment door open.
I looked about frantically. The only sensible place to hide was under the bed. In moments I was down on the floor and out of sight, fists clenched, teeth gritted, my heart pounding so hard that I was sure it could be heard.
I wanted to cry. I had been so sure that I would hear the vigil coming to an end; I did not think that the kloster’s entire population could disperse without making a huge deal of noise. Perhaps they had, and I had been so consumed by the correspondence that I simply hadn’t noticed – or perhaps the thick stone walls of the kloster had simply masked the noise. It hardly mattered.
The bed was high enough that I could see out from under it, while being low enough that I could not be seen. I tried to calm myself with some deep, quiet breaths. There was nothing under the bed, no reason for anybody to check. All I needed to do was hold my nerve; an opportunity to leave would present itself.
I heard Fischer bustling around the reception chamber; then, not five minutes after he had come in, there was a knock at the outer door. Fischer sighed, and then came the sound of the door being pulled open.
“Brother Walter,” Fischer said. The sound of people bustling through the corridors filtered through into the bedchamber – footsteps on warm stone, pleasant conversation, the trill of an unguarded laugh. I was so desperate to be out there among them it was agony. What a wretched corner I had painted myself into. I could not help but blame Vonvalt entirely.
“Something troubles you?” Fischer asked wearily.
“’Tis the Tollish girl. The sanctuary-seeker.”
“Yes,” Fischer said impatiently. “I am tired, Brother. What is the matter?”
“She is not in her chamber.”
I bit my hand to stop myself crying out. I felt like a fox trapped in a cage. Animal fear, urgent and primal, overcame me. I began to debate insane notions in my mind: perhaps I could dash past both of them and out of the apartment door, navigate my way through the warren of corridors, burst out of the main entrance, sprint past the gate guard… And then what? Further, darker images took hold, welling up in my mind like oil through sand. I thought of being ridden down on that cold, treacherous path back to the town, of being run through and left for dead on the side of the road, or worse – having my head smashed in like Lady Bauer and thrown, gasping and insensible, into the frigid Gale.
“Is she not ill?” Fischer asked. “That is what I had been told.”
“Ostensibly.”
“Well then, perhaps she has gone off to void her guts.”
“There is no sign of her in the women’s latrines.”
“What have I told you about that?” Fischer said sharply. “You remember our discussion.”
“This is different.” Walter was close to exasperation; only the confines of hierarchy kept his anger in check. “I suspect her.”
“Suspect her of what?”
“Of seeking sanctuary falsely.”
Fischer sighed with an air of theatricality. “We have trodden this path before.”
“I told you, this is different. Sister Klein was a liar. You know the Venlanders cannot exhale without spewing mistruths about the place. She—”
In my mind’s eye I pictured Fischer holding up a hand for silence. “My forbearance sags under the weight of your sin, Brother,” he said.
“I only do what I think is best for the kloster,” Walter mumbled. “For the order. You do not think it strange that she is here? The Justice’s clerk, in the kloster? No doubt poking around.”
“And what is it that she might find?” Fischer asked.
Another silence. I imagined Brother Walter squirming uncomfortably under his master’s gaze. What was the man hiding? The two men were not talking as conspirators would; when I thought about it, had there really been anything that incriminating in the letters? Was there anything in there that couldn’t be explained? Was Fischer simply transferring what he considered to be legitimate money to the Templars? Was it in fact Brother Walter who was operating in league with Vogt and Bauer? I felt like I was the closest I had come to unlocking the secrets of the kloster, and yet the furthest I could be from being able to do anything about it.
“Eject her,” Brother Walter urged, ignoring his master’s question. “You would not even have to give a reason. It is the best thing for the order.”
I heard Fischer draw himself up. “I decide what is the best thing for the order,” he said. “Begone now, Brother, and leave the girl be. You are not to follow her again.”
There was another silence in which I fancied Walter stared venomously at Fischer; then his shuffling, retreating footsteps sounded through the reception chamber, and shortly after that, I heard the door close.
I heard Fischer groan, and there followed the sound of two hands being rubbed against a bristly face. Then he called out in a clear voice:
“You can come out now; he is gone.”
XX
Kultaar’s Gifts
“Few people will thank you for being cleverer than them. A man will prefer the ravings of his neighbour over the word of the most learned scholar in Sova.”
SIR WILLIAM THE HONEST
A small, involuntary moan escaped my lips. It was the helpless, hapless wail of the doomed. Unless you, reader, have been somewhere you are not supposed to be – and your very life is at stake, or at least you believe it to be – then I cannot convey to you effectively the terror of such a situation. In my experience, it is worse than the mortal combat of the battlefield. The latter is a horror in itself, but it is a physical horror, and if you are armed then your fate is at least partly in your hands. Here, I was helpless. Even in the best possible case, if it really was Brother Walter who was the criminal mastermind, and Fischer was just a well-meaning if misguided benefactor to the Savaran Templars, the obenpatria was hardly about to take kindly to me infiltrating his private quarters and rifling through his correspondence.
“Come on; I don’t have all evening,” Fischer said impatiently. “Out with you; the man is gone.”
With sweating, trembling hands, I began to shift out from under the bed. I felt like a girl approaching the gallows, though if the situation were really as bad as I deemed it to be, then I could do worse than a brisk hanging.
I was about halfway out from under the bed when I heard a second voice cut through the air:
“Excellency; forgive my hesitation. I did not hear the door close.”
With teeth clenched so firmly it felt as though they were about to buckle, and barely daring to breathe, I quickly and carefully pressed my way back under the bed. I imagined the Deti standing around a table, rolling dice and manipulating figurines, my reprieve no more than a stroke of cosmic luck. Perhaps my prayer to Kultaar had worked. Either way, I could not take much more stress. I felt as though my heart were about to give out.
“Come,” Fischer said, “to the bedchamber. Nema knows I am weary.”
“Who was that with you?” the mystery woman asked. I could not place the voice, but she sounded like one of the older nuns. “I could not hear from where I was concealed.”
“Brother Walter,” Fischer said wearily. His voice was louder now as he approached the bedchamber. “The man has been a thorn in my side for years. He has some project going on in the kloster, some scheme which I have yet to fully uncover. He seeks out reasons to suspect people like a boar seeking out truffles. I am sure the man is half mad.”
“I’ve never liked him. Few of the women do. He is a lecherous sort.”
They were both in the room now. My eyes were screwed shut. I heard at least one of them sit down on the bed.
“Leave it. It is spoiling my mood.”
“Your mood,” the woman said, her voice playful. “You are feeling somewhat lecherous yourself.”
Too late I realised what was about to happen. I pressed my hands over my ears, but to no avail. The sound of kissing and moaning and undressing wended its way through to me like thread through the eye of a needle. It was not long before the bed was shaking with the unmistakable slap of flesh against flesh. Fischer had many faults, but unfortunately for me, lack of stamina was not one of them. In some ways I wished I had been caught; enduring this horror, becoming an unwitting and unwilling pervert, was one of the most disagreeable episodes of my time in Galen’s Vale.
Eventually the man spent himself inside his unlucky lover – I never learned her identity. Though their coupling had taken an age, I had to console myself with the fact that I had not been caught. I waited as she redressed and left, and Fischer washed and prepared for bed. This brief time was marked by fresh horror as I waited for the man to inadvertently drop something under the bed and bend down to gather it; but, as before, Kultaar had evidently heard my prayers, and my hiding place remained undisturbed.
The man extinguished the lamps next to his bed, bathing the chamber in darkness. Absurdly, the greatest danger now was falling asleep myself. The incredible mental strains of the last hour or so had left me profoundly exhausted, and the rug underneath the bed was comfortable, the chamber warm and dark. Nonetheless I forced myself to remain awake, digging my nails into my thigh whenever I sensed that fatigue was about overwhelm me.
Fischer of course eventually fell asleep. I waited probably another hour until I was sure; then I snuck out through the apartment. Every step seemed to echo like the tolling of the temple bell; every creak and crack of my bones seemed to resonate like the earthy rumblings of a landslide. I pictured Fischer lying awake in the darkness, watching my retreating form, the slow breathing of his apparent sleep a mere pretence. I became increasingly het up as I waited for his voice to penetrate the still like a knife, and it took all my self-control not to dash for the door, yank it open and flee. But, drawing on some deep reserve, I tiptoed out, opened and closed the door, and after a brisk trot through the warren-like corridors of the kloster, I was back in my chamber.
I lay on my front on my bed and broke into hysterical laughter. It seemed to go on for ages, as though someone had unstoppered me and could not get the cork back in. I had to put my pillow over my face, for although the walls were thick stone and effectively prevented sound from travelling, I dared not risk being heard.
Eventually I calmed down enough to turn in. As I lay in the dark, my nerves still far too highly strung for sleep to come, I thought about what I would do next. The greatest temptation was simply to leave, for the kloster was not a prison, nor was I a prisoner, and I was free to go at any time. But I felt compelled to stay. With hindsight, it seems insanely reckless that I would do anything other than slip out the gate, but at the time I had this inexplicable desire to double down whenever I encountered the slightest success. It was why I had had such difficulty in walking away from Vonvalt’s employment – every time I thought about it, some achievement or word of praise from him would stoke my pride and convince me of the error of my ways.
I resolved to try and find out more about Brother Walter. It did not seem like as difficult a task as the one I had just undertaken; Brother Walter was less subtle, and he had few friends about the kloster. I gave myself until the end of the week to see what the man was about. If I hadn’t found out anything useful by then, I would leave.
At least, that was the plan.
The following day was a tedious one. I realised that an illness lasting a single day would do nothing but raise suspicion, especially one that had seen me escape the many uninteresting Fool’s Day services, and so I maintained the pretence. As before, the other nuns were keen to keep me confined to my chamber, and so I passed an extraordinarily boring day leafing through the Neman Creed, staring out the window and pacing my room like an animal in a cage. I half-expected Brother Walter to come and poke his nose through the door, but he seemed to have taken Fischer’s advice to heart. The man’s position at the kloster was evidently more precarious than anyone knew.
The hours passed. The sun set and darkness claimed the Vale. I willed it to be bedtime so that I could at least pass the remainder of my confinement in unconsciousness. But then, during the hour or so of private prayer after dinner, there was a knock at my door.
“Come in,” I said with a dry mouth, realising that they were the first words I had spoken all day.
It was Emilia. She opened my door, slipped inside, closed the door behind her and waved me quiet while she listened out for any footsteps in the corridor. It seemed strange to see her in little more than her night robes, without a wimple on. Her hair was fairer than I would have guessed from the colour of her eyebrows.
“What in Kasivar’s name is going on?” I asked, my heart pounding and my blood singing in my veins. “You’ll get us both a whipping.”
She crossed the several steps it took to reach the bed and sat down. I could see she was upset.
“About the other day,” she said.
“Yes?”
She opened her mouth and closed it again. I waited patiently. I knew from experience that no form of hard or soft questioning would draw her out.
